I feel like that is kind of a different problem. I mean it's like this. If you have corruption in politics, you're screwed. The end. So if that is the problem, we need to address it, but it is a separate issue with a separate solution unrelated to how to solve the problem of competition in internet service.
Me, I think the corruption in politics is both the result and the enabler of corruption in Corporate America - and I don't think that you can separate a concept such as providing services on a non-profit model from that corruption unless you take steps to ensure that you are not dependent upon any service or supplier that corruption can reach.
You would be competing with corporations that contribute to the corruption of politics (either directly, or through their lobbyists) - corporations that engage in M&A activity because competition inhibits profits - so once you embarked upon that path you must perforce accept the fact that you will have both political and corporate dogs seeking any weakness you expose.
I overlooked making a key point: Fines imply that the government would back you up. If the FCC's approach to net neutrality or the Supreme Court's ruling on Citizens United should have taught us anything, it is that men and women of good and honest character rarely meet the "political criteria" for appointment to entities that determine whether or not to enforce regulations and levy fines or other penalties.
Particularly not when the political party...the name of which I will leave you to determine for yourself... that abhors truth but thrives on propaganda is in power.
lolll...you've forgotten that you're operating on a "non-profit" model. If you permit yourself to get into a position wherein you have no alternative to the courts in order to seek recompense for having your business model sabotaged, the big corporations will drown you in court delays and a stable of lawyers that would make Al Pacino's character in The Devil's Advocate frothing mad with jealousy.
I would personally judge how serious such a venture was - how much chance for success it had - by the steps taken to avoid reliance upon any corporation or business that was outside of that venture's direct control.
Hence, my suggestion of alternative energy as your power source.
Really think you'll win a suit for "dropped calls"? Still going to keep that carrier as you sue them? Rather, think they'll keep you? If the answer is "No." to either of the latter questions or if all you succeed in doing is getting out of your contract, that leaves you sans a cell phone unless you're in an area with overlapping coverage from multiple carriers...something that monopolies are intended to prevent.
Heck, you miss out on a lot of profit if you have competition...hence the carriers gobbling each other up.
TFS should have read the "Las Vegas Sun" - the other daily paper in Vegas, and one with a decidedly more leftward tilt than the strongly conservative Review-Journal, whose proxy Righthaven is. The Greenspun Media Group, which owns the Sun, also owns the "Las Vegas Weekly", one of two major alternative weeklies in Vegas (the other is Las Vegas Citylife, a Stephens Media paper, for which, in the interests of full disclosure, I wrote a cover story in 2008.)
Probably should look at powering everything with a solar system-fail-to-battery-fail-to-generators. 'Cuz the Big Utilities - acting in defense of their Corporate Brethren - would likely find that your electricity feed was unusually problematic.
Do ya get locked into a one-year contract at yer grocery store wherein if your vittles suddenly start reeking of rotting chicken and have shiny little worms crawling around in them too bad, ya gotta eat 'em anyway?
Join the Clean Energy Project and use the idle time of your computer(s) to get us off oil (and so the Middle East) and avoid the need for nuclear plants in your backyard.
What with all that darkness you guys deal with, I can't figure out why Scandinavian women evolved into such exquisite creatures. What does it matter, in the dark?
Now you forget the other half of the year. Imagine watching a woman in perpetual light for months, not a moment of darkness to spare your eyes... And the other half of the year doesn't give less attractive looking people any advantage, it just makes thing equal for half of the time.
lolll...now you've made an argument for "intelligent design".
I think what the earlier poster meant by "Of course, we already know the answer." was "Greed"
I was being both facetious and amusing myself in choosing a descriptor that would infuriate the typical modern American CEO. Although there are exceptions to every rule, I'd have to sum it up:
Human + Greed + Lust (for power; for control, for dominance in the game of sexes) -------------- Wannabe CEO - Ethics - Morality - Empathy -------------- CEO
And the calculation that creates far too many of the subspecies known as the modern CEO occurs in pretty much that order. Me, I point to Al "Chainsaw" Dunlap and George Welch as the two CEOs who created the infinite loop that now dominates Corporate America and turns out predators rather than builders and leaders.
Why, I would like to know, is it easier for pipsqueaks like us to stand up to government coercion than for large corporations with a stable of capable lawyers on hand and not a fear in the world for their own safety? Of course, we already know the answer.
The CEOs of all of the world's great corporations are scaredy-cats?
Context, eh? He was indeed a mighty hunter...always hunting for flaws, and inventing them where he found them to be lacking.
And I daresay I wouldn't have gotten the honors I wanted if I had indulged myself with "goto", for once I stepped off that precipice I have no doubt my labels would have been of the sort:
I didn't find the math to be difficult or even tiresome. But the nimrod professor criticizing me for exiting subroutines in the middle of loops and conditionals?
I found that to be annoying given that I'd started programming in ASM before I ever hit a university and it offends me to execute code I don't have to just so my code always hits the return way down there at the bottom.
What with all that darkness you guys deal with, I can't figure out why Scandinavian women evolved into such exquisite creatures. What does it matter, in the dark?
Ya know our Republicans won't be able to stand for being outdone by the Aussies in developing methods to control the flow of information over the Internet...
So in a country that people deride as stereotypically socialist, net neutrality is accomplished voluntarily, whereas in the purportedly "free market" U.S., the government tried to coerce ISPs to do this. What's wrong with this picture?
We tend to regulate here in the U.S. 'cuz we have a much more highly-developed corporate organism whose ability and willingness to consume anything - from human beings to the planet itself - has been on exhibition continuously for over 100 years.
(Doesn't that sound better than America has displayed a startling capability for breeding a scummier, greedier subspecies of humans?)
After all, once they shut down NPR and PBS the only open and uncontrolled source of information that is readily accessible to all of the American people will be the 'net...and since the right doesn't like facts and the truth obscuring their message...their manipulation, that is...
Well, if you're a gambling man I think you could call an eventual attempt by the Republicans to speed up the establishment of moral and behavioral norms that carry forward traditional American virtues ("virtues" which will be defined and redefined as required by that little cadre of wealthy conservatives who own the Republicans) a "sure thing".
Hate to think Facebook would only have audio of phone sex to make "freely-available to developers and other interested parties"....
lolll...although I suppose your Skype calls might be the exception-to-the-Facebook-rule, and so be kept private...but being a gambling man, that wouldn't be the wager I would make. Not when I consider the size of the forces that want to ensure that the 'net is never considered to be a common carrier...and not when Facebook seems to be willing to make a buck for Zuck from all of the rest of your "confidential you hope" data.
Here's hoping Messenger results aren't being displayed on live TV globally when suddenly the Messenger feeds wink out, and you hear a voice in the background sat "Oh, shit...did you see the size of that flare? I gotta get home to my family".
Most of the time when I've seen it the actual cause was the fixture or lamp was subjected to more vibration - say, the fixture below the kids' rooms, or the lamp that sat on a coffee table which itself sat on a joist that supported the washing machine on the other side of the wall - than the other fixtures in house. I.e., mechanical rather than electrical cause. The garage light? I'd bet electric garage door opener either on the same rafter or connected by cross-bracing. Not to rule out electrical...I've seen people have sockets that were wired in series with some other load and they didn't even know it. Filaments don't make all that good resisters.
Kinda like having a 100000 mile warranty, and your cars engine dies at 103000 miles.
Exactly what I was thinking. My parents had a lightbulb in their garage that was there when they bought the house and never burned out in the subsequent 40 years and still hasn't burned out. Yet every incandescent bulb I've ever bought was only good for a couple hundred hours.
I hope his jury remembers what the corporations have been doing to them for decades and decades.
Slashdot Mirror
I feel like that is kind of a different problem. I mean it's like this. If you have corruption in politics, you're screwed. The end. So if that is the problem, we need to address it, but it is a separate issue with a separate solution unrelated to how to solve the problem of competition in internet service.
Me, I think the corruption in politics is both the result and the enabler of corruption in Corporate America - and I don't think that you can separate a concept such as providing services on a non-profit model from that corruption unless you take steps to ensure that you are not dependent upon any service or supplier that corruption can reach.
You would be competing with corporations that contribute to the corruption of politics (either directly, or through their lobbyists) - corporations that engage in M&A activity because competition inhibits profits - so once you embarked upon that path you must perforce accept the fact that you will have both political and corporate dogs seeking any weakness you expose.
I overlooked making a key point: Fines imply that the government would back you up. If the FCC's approach to net neutrality or the Supreme Court's ruling on Citizens United should have taught us anything, it is that men and women of good and honest character rarely meet the "political criteria" for appointment to entities that determine whether or not to enforce regulations and levy fines or other penalties.
Particularly not when the political party...the name of which I will leave you to determine for yourself... that abhors truth but thrives on propaganda is in power.
lolll...you've forgotten that you're operating on a "non-profit" model. If you permit yourself to get into a position wherein you have no alternative to the courts in order to seek recompense for having your business model sabotaged, the big corporations will drown you in court delays and a stable of lawyers that would make Al Pacino's character in The Devil's Advocate frothing mad with jealousy.
I would personally judge how serious such a venture was - how much chance for success it had - by the steps taken to avoid reliance upon any corporation or business that was outside of that venture's direct control.
Hence, my suggestion of alternative energy as your power source.
Really think you'll win a suit for "dropped calls"? Still going to keep that carrier as you sue them? Rather, think they'll keep you? If the answer is "No." to either of the latter questions or if all you succeed in doing is getting out of your contract, that leaves you sans a cell phone unless you're in an area with overlapping coverage from multiple carriers...something that monopolies are intended to prevent.
Heck, you miss out on a lot of profit if you have competition...hence the carriers gobbling each other up.
TFS should have read the "Las Vegas Sun" - the other daily paper in Vegas, and one with a decidedly more leftward tilt than the strongly conservative Review-Journal, whose proxy Righthaven is. The Greenspun Media Group, which owns the Sun, also owns the "Las Vegas Weekly", one of two major alternative weeklies in Vegas (the other is Las Vegas Citylife, a Stephens Media paper, for which, in the interests of full disclosure, I wrote a cover story in 2008.)
I hope you washed the money they paid you...a little research suggests that it was probably a lot slimy.
Probably should look at powering everything with a solar system-fail-to-battery-fail-to-generators. 'Cuz the Big Utilities - acting in defense of their Corporate Brethren - would likely find that your electricity feed was unusually problematic.
Do ya get locked into a one-year contract at yer grocery store wherein if your vittles suddenly start reeking of rotting chicken and have shiny little worms crawling around in them too bad, ya gotta eat 'em anyway?
Join the Clean Energy Project and use the idle time of your computer(s) to get us off oil (and so the Middle East) and avoid the need for nuclear plants in your backyard.
Watch the tutorial...is easy.
Remember: The best defense is a good offense. Spread the word - save the world.
(This opportunity to save the human race valid for any sentient being on this planet and all others.)
Five moderator points, and no comments worth reading.
Where one sees "George", read "Jack". At least I didn't call him "Jelly". lolll...
What with all that darkness you guys deal with, I can't figure out why Scandinavian women evolved into such exquisite creatures. What does it matter, in the dark?
Now you forget the other half of the year. Imagine watching a woman in perpetual light for months, not a moment of darkness to spare your eyes... And the other half of the year doesn't give less attractive looking people any advantage, it just makes thing equal for half of the time.
lolll...now you've made an argument for "intelligent design".
I think what the earlier poster meant by "Of course, we already know the answer." was "Greed"
I was being both facetious and amusing myself in choosing a descriptor that would infuriate the typical modern American CEO. Although there are exceptions to every rule, I'd have to sum it up:
Human
+ Greed
+ Lust (for power; for control, for dominance in the game of sexes)
--------------
Wannabe CEO
- Ethics
- Morality
- Empathy
--------------
CEO
And the calculation that creates far too many of the subspecies known as the modern CEO occurs in pretty much that order. Me, I point to Al "Chainsaw" Dunlap and George Welch as the two CEOs who created the infinite loop that now dominates Corporate America and turns out predators rather than builders and leaders.
Why, I would like to know, is it easier for pipsqueaks like us to stand up to government coercion than for large corporations with a stable of capable lawyers on hand and not a fear in the world for their own safety? Of course, we already know the answer.
The CEOs of all of the world's great corporations are scaredy-cats?
Context, eh? He was indeed a mighty hunter...always hunting for flaws, and inventing them where he found them to be lacking.
And I daresay I wouldn't have gotten the honors I wanted if I had indulged myself with "goto", for once I stepped off that precipice I have no doubt my labels would have been of the sort:
efficiencyBefore:
style:
inthe:
realWorld:
youShould:
tryIt:
once:
I didn't find the math to be difficult or even tiresome. But the nimrod professor criticizing me for exiting subroutines in the middle of loops and conditionals?
I found that to be annoying given that I'd started programming in ASM before I ever hit a university and it offends me to execute code I don't have to just so my code always hits the return way down there at the bottom.
Yay, Michael Abrash; boo, academician.
What with all that darkness you guys deal with, I can't figure out why Scandinavian women evolved into such exquisite creatures. What does it matter, in the dark?
Ya know our Republicans won't be able to stand for being outdone by the Aussies in developing methods to control the flow of information over the Internet...
So in a country that people deride as stereotypically socialist, net neutrality is accomplished voluntarily, whereas in the purportedly "free market" U.S., the government tried to coerce ISPs to do this. What's wrong with this picture?
We tend to regulate here in the U.S. 'cuz we have a much more highly-developed corporate organism whose ability and willingness to consume anything - from human beings to the planet itself - has been on exhibition continuously for over 100 years.
(Doesn't that sound better than America has displayed a startling capability for breeding a scummier, greedier subspecies of humans?)
After all, once they shut down NPR and PBS the only open and uncontrolled source of information that is readily accessible to all of the American people will be the 'net...and since the right doesn't like facts and the truth obscuring their message...their manipulation, that is...
Well, if you're a gambling man I think you could call an eventual attempt by the Republicans to speed up the establishment of moral and behavioral norms that carry forward traditional American virtues ("virtues" which will be defined and redefined as required by that little cadre of wealthy conservatives who own the Republicans) a "sure thing".
Hate to think Facebook would only have audio of phone sex to make "freely-available to developers and other interested parties"....
lolll...although I suppose your Skype calls might be the exception-to-the-Facebook-rule, and so be kept private...but being a gambling man, that wouldn't be the wager I would make. Not when I consider the size of the forces that want to ensure that the 'net is never considered to be a common carrier...and not when Facebook seems to be willing to make a buck for Zuck from all of the rest of your "confidential you hope" data.
Here's hoping Messenger results aren't being displayed on live TV globally when suddenly the Messenger feeds wink out, and you hear a voice in the background sat "Oh, shit...did you see the size of that flare? I gotta get home to my family".
Most of the time when I've seen it the actual cause was the fixture or lamp was subjected to more vibration - say, the fixture below the kids' rooms, or the lamp that sat on a coffee table which itself sat on a joist that supported the washing machine on the other side of the wall - than the other fixtures in house. I.e., mechanical rather than electrical cause. The garage light? I'd bet electric garage door opener either on the same rafter or connected by cross-bracing. Not to rule out electrical...I've seen people have sockets that were wired in series with some other load and they didn't even know it. Filaments don't make all that good resisters.
"Do you have insurance or will you be paying cash?" in 170 languages?
Add some stone tablets and a good back story and you could start your own religion.
The religion is already in place: The individual is nothing, and shall bow to *Corporation.
(*Regardless of the fact that Corporation is but the man behind the curtain - with the acknowledgment due to L. Frank Baum.)
Kinda like having a 100000 mile warranty, and your cars engine dies at 103000 miles.
Exactly what I was thinking. My parents had a lightbulb in their garage that was there when they bought the house and never burned out in the subsequent 40 years and still hasn't burned out. Yet every incandescent bulb I've ever bought was only good for a couple hundred hours.
I hope his jury remembers what the corporations have been doing to them for decades and decades.